When the Lembke family came from Germany in 1883
they settled on a 120 acre farm in Section 21 of the Township of
Dupont. $350. mortgage payable to Horton Cottrell. Located on what is
now known as Long Lake Road. In their German homeland, they were
peasants working for rich absentee landowners. Emigrant tickets were
provided by relatives already in America. In Germany houses and barns
were built together. The cow herds provided heat for the adjoining
house.
Neighbors in Dupont were Pockat, Kussman, Schmidt, Knaack, Arndt, Maas,
Bork, Krueger, Durkey families and others. This was the Lake Michael
School District. Were longtime members of Trinity West Dupont Lutheran
Church. Many family members rest in the adjoining cemetery awaiting
kingdom come. Milk cans were hauled by horse and buggy or sleigh to
the Green Valley Cheese Factory, just down the road a bit.
In Dupont when they came, there were no
buildings. Only a wild land of forests, trees had to be cut and land
cleared. Along with working the ground, rocks and boulders surfaced
with the spring frost, to be hauled off the fields in a contraption
called a 'stone boat'. Hilly land useful for sledding in the snowy
Wisconsin winters.
Because trees were plentiful, the logs were used to build primitive houses and barns. These lasted for 20 years.
By 1911, one hundred years ago, Wilhelm (Bill)
Lembke 1869-1953, his wife Hannah (nee Schade) 1871-1919, had six
young children Arthur 1896-1942, Charles 1894-1893, Martha Piotraschke
1897-1928, Esther Genskow 1903-1983, Hilda Wangelin 1904-1981, and
Clara Pranke 1900-1921. Hannah died of dropsy, Art was killed in an
automobile accident, leaving seven young children, Martha died of gall
bladder surgery complications, leaving 3 young children, and Clara died
in childbirth. How sad for Bill Lembke to lose half his family, yet he
remained upbeat and happy. Wilhelm Lembke died one October night in
1953 after husking corn all day. He was 84.
In 1911 Bill and Hannah had been married for
nineteen years and they felt it time to build a wood frame and stone
wall barn. A century ago.
Picking a location for the barn was important, west
of the house to provide a wind break. A rise of the ground for
drainage. Surrounding pasture land and room for crops, hay, corn,
oats, wheat. Building barb wire fences. Most barns were timber framed,
post and beam forming strong structures to withstand storms and heavy
loads of animal feed. 100 years later it is still upright to
withstand the storms of life and other calamities.
The Lembke children were assigned to gathering
these rocks. Types of rocks were granite, a course grain, light
color, basalt, the heavy black dense rock, and quartzite or sandstone.
Stone mason crews (who were paid a dollar a day) were hired to build
a ten foot high rock wall, two feet deep, two and a half feet in the
ground and seven and a half feet exposed. The barn measured
about 36x80 feet with windows and doors on three sides. Meaning there
was about 272 feet total of stone walls. If each stone measures about
a foot square it would take over four thousand stones to build the
walls two rocks deep. (Carl Much calculations.) Weighing about 30
pounds apiece this comes to many tons of rocks. Two or three doors,
plus 14 or so windows would reduce the square footage. The Good Lord in
his wisdom provided these rocks to Wisconsin farmers to build stone
walls for their barns. Mixed with mortar, sand, gravel and water to
bind the rocks together. Stones had to be split so a flat surface was
on the outside making a smooth wall. Neat. Stone masons were proud
of their work, arranging the rocks by color, red, black, brown and
gray. It took six to eight weeks to build a stone wall. No one builds
barns like this anymore. Only in our memories the lore and legends of
barn building. No one lives there anymore.
The Good Lord also provided trees, to be hacked
down, cut into lumber for the barn. Tamarack, elm, hemlock. Wood and
lumber had to be dried at least a year, as green wood split, warped and
shrank. Another crew of carpenters, specialty barn builders came to
frame the barn. A huge beam was placed on top of the stone wall,
notches for floor joists, 24 inches apart, next floor boards. and the
skeleton and roof beams, Neighbors wandered in to provide bull work
on an exchange basis. Women cooked huge meals for the hungry
hard-working men and boys. They too, in the early years of the
twentieth century built their own barns. With their own many rocks and
trees. The Good Lord blessed early farmers with stones, rocks and
boulders and each spring a new crop sprung up with the frost. And even
now in 2011, the rocks are shoved to the surface each spring by the
frost.
Beams, rigid rafters, a supporting structure of
post and beam, oak wood pegged. All hand tools, no electricity no
hydraulic lifts or other labor saving innovations.. Oak pegs held
timbers together. Drilled with a hand devise. Pike poles used to
push, lift and pull the skeleton of new barn. Only the skilled
carpenter climbers were allowed to work on the upper parts of the
barn. Square nails were used to connect the one inch rough boards
to the frame work. Two versions of roofs were available, and it was
the skill and inclination of the barn builder to choose. The gable and
gambrel or hip. The Lembke barn was the gable type. Steep roofs in
Wisconsin were necessary to shed snow and rain water. Eave troughs
were attached to the overhanging roof, to ease water away from the
foundation.
Red cedar shingles were used to cover the roof.
Also provided by the Good Lord from the swamp. Some were machine sawed
with a primitive gasoline engine, others were hand sliced with an axe
called an adz or froe. Labor intensive. But a good cedar shingle roof
would last for thirty years. This was replaced at one point by a
crimped tin roof, which rusted. Ventilators pulled moisture from the
barn to the outside. While most farmers eventually painted their bars
red or white, the Lembke barn was left to weather the elements into a
neutral grey.
More rocks and boulders were gathered to make a
ramp or hill into the upstairs of the barn, so wagon loads of feed
could be hauled right into the barn. Bundles of oats and wheat were
stored on the barn floor for thrashing. Chutes and stairs connected to
the bottom floor. Straw stack outside over rough boards provided cover
for pigs and young cattle.
This era of advancement in dairy farming would
greatly increase efficiency and production. Bill Lembke knew this and
it was why he built his big dairy barn. Stalls and stanchions for
twenty cows, a bull pen, calf pens, horse stalls. A gutter for manure
collection. A metal track attached to the ceiling and a carrier
bucket could haul manure outside into a pile or in a spreader to haul
on the fields.
Upstairs in the barn, another steel track was
attached to the peak of the roof. This labor saving device was
invented and made possible the storage of large quantities of hay.
Hay was cut, either with a scythe or an early McCormick mower pulled by
horses, forked on a wagon, or a loader, hauled to the barn. Huge
pronged forks clumped a bunch of hay, ropes pulled, with the aid of a
horse, up and into the barn. A mechanism tripped and the hay whooshed
into a pile in a particular mow. No matter which conveniences were
invented, dairy farming in those early years were still labor
intensive. Damp or wet hay, would cause heat, and combustion and fires
resulted. Bill Lembke was careful and never had that problem. The
barn was immune from lightning strikes or tornadoes.
Probably a barn dance was held to celebrate the new
barn. Daughters weddings were held at the farm. Photographs survive
from those happy occasions.
Another storage structure for feed, was a silo.
The Lembkes first had a glazed clay tile brown silo built which had a
hollow space in the middle so the corn silage did not freeze. A
concrete silo was added and in later years these were replaced by a
Madison Stave Silo. Corn was chopped and blown into this silo to be
used for cattle feed.
Even though a lake was a short distance away, a
well was dug, and a windmill built on top, providing water for the barn
and house. A very labor saving device. Other outbuildings were a
piggery, coop for the chickens, ducks and geese. corn cribs, granary,
outhouse, woodshed, smoke house, carriage or car shed.
Around this time, too, it became apparent that a
wood frame house needed to replace the two-story log house. Rocks were
again gathered for a basement, two story frame house with a pressed
metal siding and cedar shingles. This home held many happy memories.
Age and deterioration took its toll, and was dismantled and now the
site of grain storage bins.
Two lakes to the west of the farm were called
Lembke and Long Lakes. Good fishing, winter and summer. In 1956 Chas.
and Clara Lembke deeded to Waupaca County a parcel of land for Public
Access along the shore of Lembke Lake. The family enjoyed fishing and
brought home many meals for the table.
The Lembkes and their heirs, the Piotraschke
family farmed this land for 117 years until 2000 when it was sold to
Kevin and Lori Watchman. One hundred years ago this barn was built and
still standing strong.
A testament to hope, this 1911 barn of my Great Uncle Bill Lembke who held me on his lap and called me his little 'girlie'.
Information and opinions furnished by June Erdmann
and Barb Sawall, great granddaughters of Bill and Hannah Lembke, and
Russell Miller, Historian.
copyright 2011, Delores and Russell Miller
